


high school sweethearts (and if you fuck me over i will rip your face apart)

by lavenderss



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Moments, One Shot Collection, or that's the idea for now anyways
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29402904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderss/pseuds/lavenderss
Summary: chapter 4:That's the point,she reminds herself strictly, but it doesn't stop her crying. Leaving everything behind is as hard as she'd thought.Leaving everyone behind is much harder.//Carla/Samuel one-shots, missing moments from S2 and S3. Not in chronological order.
Relationships: Carla Rosón Caleruega/Samuel García Domínguez
Comments: 39
Kudos: 44





	1. slowly, and then all at once

**Author's Note:**

> hii so i guess this was necessary. chapters are going to be rated individually and the overall rating will be raised when something with a higher rating will be posted. (the title is from high school sweethearts by melanie martinez which i think is exactly unsettling enough to describe their high school relationship hh).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hii! this was the first thing i ever wrote about carmuel, in april/may 2020 i think? chances are that you've already read this if you know me from my wattpad account, but starting this collection with this felt kinda symbolic and although i'm not such a huge fan of this anymore, i guess it would've felt incomplete. (if you've already read this, feel free to skip over. i posetd a second chapter and that's completely new. also, anyone who's been reading me since back then, literally: I LOVE YOU. and everyone else who reads my writing too, of course. thank you so much for your support, it's pretty insane how long this stuck and it's all because of you guys <3 - and the fact that elite and carmuel have turned my brain into mush, duh.)  
> ps: this is inspired by the quote from the fault in our stars, don't come at me.

Carla doesn't really know why she started this whole thing.

She _is_ supposed to be sure of her reasons – Samuel was curious, and she wanted to shut him up, so she did, with the method she knows best – however, it seems that she wasn't entirely successful. Samuel doesn't seem to want to drop it.

And, even worse, more often than not, when she's muting her groans in his shoulder or in his kisses, she finds herself forgetting about _why_ she's doing this. She could attribute it to the natural, bodily responses – he has her defenselessly exposed to pleasure, pleasure from under his hands (and other things), after all, so maybe it's normal that when she's whimpering and shaking and gasping, maybe it's completely natural that she forgets that she's only there to keep him quiet and calm.

However, she hasn't been entirely successful. Carla is deeply observant, and she sees Samuel's muted whispers to Rebeka in class, and the gaze that the girl gives her afterwards. Carla also sees how oblivious Samuel is to Rebeka's crush, but she's not about to point it out. Why should she? She has no interest in Samuel being happy with a girlfriend. They're not friends; if their relationship is even classifiable, it would be enemies. With benefits, if you wish.

Perhaps it would be better for her plan to distract Samuel _by_ Rebeka – a relationship is something that takes a lot of time, after all, and maybe he'd stop snooping around the things that make Carla wake up in the middle of the night with a heaviness on her chest that prevents her from breathing. Maybe fucking with the enemy is just adding fuel to the flames. Maybe Carla is just making everything worse, because a few times, she really was tempted to tell him the whole truth.

The issue is, Carla isn't capable of that. She tells herself that she's continuing with it because it is the only way to keep the waiter – calling him by a snarky nickname in her head is her newfound and largely unsuccessful strategy to stop herself from having these stupid and dangerous thoughts – under control. But really, Carla is too smart to be deceived, even by herself. She knows that the thought of throwing Samuel into Rebeka's arms sends her inner organs on fire; she couldn't even stand seeing them talk in the corridor, for fuck's sake. She knows that she isn't putting an end to this because she _doesn't want to_.

It is an incredibly childish reason. She could find a different fuck buddy – she could probably find dozens, if she wanted, make an alphabetically organized list and have a multiple-step audition, always calling back the best prospective candidates. But how could she pick, when she knows that the one perfect for the part (well, except his investigation of the murder that she's covering up and that stuff) is already within her reach? How could she settle for mediocrity, when she has something, someone, who sends her to the stars – and has her turned on with a mere look?

First, she thought that it was the game that made it so special: the adrenaline, the hatred, the mysteries, the whole forbidden fruit thing. But as they have progressed and kept this thing going, she arrived at the inevitable conclusion – after all, she's too smart to be deceived.

It's something about Samuel. It's something about his touch, his hair, the way his body trembles over hers. It's something about the way he says her name – he rarely does, but when she tries her hardest, it's there, the ruffled groan, _Carla_ , like he doesn't want to say it, but can't help himself – it is so fucking sexy. It's something about his eyes. He looks at her and they contradict everything that he emits in his tone of voice, his silent treatment of her in the hallways, his words. Sometimes, Carla thinks that he is able to see right through her, penetrating her skin and knowing all of the horrible things that she's caused, and yet, he chooses to stay. _With her_.

No, that can't be it. That's one of the most desperate thoughts that Carla urgently needs to expel out of her head. It can't be his eyes, because she's only imagining what his look means, she and her imagination gone rogue. Maybe it's his whole face. When they do it, his face is so tense and serious, concentrated on making her feel good, his brows furrowing and his lips pursed, which she finds oddly captivating – his dedication. She kind of admires him for it, but it's also one of the things that make her situation so complicated.

Carla knows that even if she allowed her thoughts in instead of keeping them locked in a bulletproof vault in the furthest corner of her mind, and examined them, one by one, and eventually arrived at the conclusion that she _likes_ – _how stupid does that sound_ – Samuel García, there would never be an option that he'd drop his mission for her. Even if he does like her in a way – realistically, Carla knows that guys tend to fall for her, or her body – there's the thing about Samuel: he won't allow himself to stop digging deeper into the whole Marina thing, until he finds out the whole truth. No matter their little affair.

Carla knows all of that. She is hyper-aware. She also knows that whatever signs of affection that she deciphers in his eyes are only ever caused by the fact that she's a pretty girl fucking him.

She _knows_. Still, she's home alone on a Friday night instead of partying with her friends, and she's laying on the top of her made bed, thinking about him, about Samuel. She doesn't know how long it's been since she collapsed onto her bed and started daydreaming – probably long, because it's gotten dark inbetween – but she knows that the whole time, he hasn't left her head, and the only word she finds to desribe it is pathetic. Carla is pathetically simping over a waiter. In her dimly lit room – the little lamp on her bedside table is the only source of light – it is somehow easier for Carla's dangerous thoughts to take control over her rational brain.

She wants to see Samuel – who, conveniently, isn't at the party, she knows that from the instagram stories. It is the most dangerous path for her stream of consciousness to take, but she finds herself imagining the scenario that would've played out, had she accepted his invitation to eat reheated macaroni.

Carla doesn't realize that she's gotten up from her bed until she finds herself putting on the pink sweater that she wore around the house today. The only reason why she snaps out of her frenzy is because Samuel doesn't like pink – but, instead of her intelligent half, or her intelligent ninety-nine percent taking over, forcing her to slip out of her casual shorts into a tight dress and going to the club with Lu – she puts on a white one.

Carla calls herself a taxi on autopilot, and she dictates Samuel's address still on that same setting, even though distantly, she finds herself baffled at how naturally the words flew out of her mouth, but when she gets out in front of Samuel's house, her rationality takes over again. The whole thing she's doing is incredibly stupid. The only reason why she started the thing with Samuel was control. Sex is also something that her brain can accept, even though it's not an ideal constellation; but, for god's sake, what explanation can Carla provide for showing up in front of Samuel's door for _dinner_?

She turns around, but her taxi driver is already gone, and after a split second of analysis and a quiet sigh, Carla accepts her fate. She is definitely going to regret this, but it's late, she's hungry, and Samuel's inside. And, besides, they haven't had an encounter in a while, and Carla finds herself longing for touch.

She should be alarmed by the way that she desires to be touched – maybe kissed, maybe hugged, maybe snuggled. It shows complete desperation and lack of control – but god, Carla hasn't been hugged in what feels like forever, let alone shown any other form of tender, physical affection. Her endeavours with Samuel don't apply – they're usually anything but tender. Even though Carla finds herself prolonging every kiss and wishing for more of that, the softness, the feelings.

The _feelings_. Carla breathes out rapidly, realizing that she's on a suicide mission, and presses Samuel's doorbell with the acceptance of a kamikaze.

She'll definitely regret this, not immediately, but in the future, when she's herself again and her brain will finally snap back into its ways, and Carla will realize that there is no way for them to ever work, but right now, her brain is apparently on a vacation, because she covers her face in a _cutesy_ move before the door opens.

When she hears the little click of the door and she forces her sped-up breath – really, this whole thing is insane, and so out of character, _she_ is insane – to calm down, and she reveals her face, she finds Samuel babbling about reading some message.

Until he looks at her and realizes that she's definitely not the one he was expecting.

His lips curl up in an involuntary grin – so do Carla's – and when she finally forces herself to open her mouth, a voice, tiny and mellow, one she doesn't recognize, comes out of her throat. "Is the dinner invitation still on the table?"

Carla doesn't realize it when she's waiting for him to heat up his disgusting-looking container of pasta in a somewhat awkward, yet not uncomfortable silence. She doesn't realize it when she tells him that they're both lonely, so they could be lonely together. She doesn't realize it when Samuel licks tomato sauce off the corner of her mouth, nor during the subsequent kiss, not even when he immobilizes her on the sofa with the sheer weight of his body – her attempts to hit him with a pillow and get him off of her largely unsucessful, and largely just for the show – she doesn't realize it when he looks at her, giggling on the couch, with unconditional adoration in his eyes and kisses her almost childishly tenderly, like he's fourteen and she's his first kiss. It would be a proper time for her to realize it, but Carla is exhausted from the laughing fit they're throwing, and too caught up in the moment to try to decipher her feelings. She knows she feels _good_ – and for the first time in her life, she doesn't feel the need to overanalyze.

She only realizes after they get back up, her hair like a pile of hay hit by a hurricane, her hair tie irreversibly lost in the folds of the couch. She watches Samuel settle back into his position and poke his fork into the macaroni.

His hair also looks like he's a zoo animal. His skin is illuminated by a floor lamp with a broken lampshade – the light accentuates his collarbones, making them sharper than they really are. His nose has a little crook on it, which also doesn't go unnoticed by Carla, and when he chews his disgusting mixture of cheap tomato sauce and overcooked pasta, he still can't stop smiling and showing his five-year-old-like dimples.

When he turns his head to look at her, provoked by the lack of clinking sounds from the metallic fork scraping against the ceramic, other than his own – she hasn't returned to her food – puts down his cutlery and gently tugs a strand of her hair behind her ear, as if the mess on her head could be fixed, and asks: "Do you like it?" with his Bambi dark chocolate eyes full of hope on her, Carla _realizes_.

She fell in love with Samuel García. Slowly, and then all at once.


	2. meet me in the pale moonlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we'll just ignore that how this pretty much contradicts the last chapter and move on a bit. unlike the last chapter, this is something new i just wrote. i'm so sorry for not posting for so long, i had massive writer's block and was super busy. i really hope you like this and thanks for sticking with me <3  
> title from meet me in the pale moonlight by lana del rey which got me thinking about a carmuel midnight date. we'll just set this sometime after the macaroni scene.  
> hope you like it <3

It's almost two a.m. and Carla's frozen toes make squeaky sounds on the stairs. She's praying to every god she knows that it won't wake up anyone. Her parents' bedroom might be on the complete opposite side of the house, but-

Extra, extra carefully, she makes her way across the hallway to the door. Breath in, out, open a tiny slit first, as if that was helpful, and then she opens the door just enough to fit in the gap.

“Hey,” Samuel whispers, eyes glistening excitedly. His breath makes clouds in the otherwise clear November night.

“Hi,” Carla answers, feeling her features unnaturally shift into a smile. “Let me get my jacket.”

She stupidly forgot her socks upstairs, so she slips into sneakers and hopes she won't get blisters. She throws a jacket over her shoulders, checks for her keys in the pocket and slides outside the door.

The wind hits her immediately; it is cold, damn it, and Samuel's ears and nose are red turning purple. His palms are stuck in his pockets and his shoulders are up by his ears.

“What are we doing?” Carla asks in the last moment before her teeth start to chatter. At least the cold wind blows away the subtext and only the literal meaning of her heavy question stays. She really wishes she'd brought gloves, but she's definitely not risking getting caught because she can't stand not feeling her fingers. She'd follow Samuel's suit and warm her hands in her pockets, but this stupid Nike sporty shit doesn't have any. Instead, she tucks them into the opposite sleeves. They're too narrow so it's kind of squishy in there, but at least all the pressure will increase the heat.

“Come on,” Samuel gently nudges her with his shoulder because he refuses to leave his cuddled-up bear pose. “It's a surprise.”

Carla huffs out a laugh that he can't see. It warms up the entire inside of her jacket, but it's not just the warm air. She doesn't say anything.

Samuel (stupidly) takes his hand out of his pocket to tug on Carla's improvized muff. Her eyes are wide and shiny and questioning, but she takes her hand out still. He pulls her closer, intertwines their fingers, leads the knot into his pocket.

“Better?”

It's worse in some way and better in another. There's definitely more wind reaching her fingers now and turning them into puple ice, but in Carla's chest, there's _heat_.

She nods.

He walks her out of her own garden at one-fifty a.m., and it only flashes through her mind once that she's in big, bad, deep trouble that has nothing to do with the risk of her parents catching her sneak out. (That happening is so unlikely that Carla doesn't know if her stomach twists with amusement or fear or some stupid _desire_ at the thought. Whatever.)

-

Only Samuel's bike _parked_ on the pavement gets her out of her head. Not even the freezing crystal layer she feels setting on her face can stop her eyebrow from springing up. Maybe she should be grateful to Samuel for making sure that her bloodstream won't just _stop_. “Are you serious?” she asks, but it's muffled in her jacket. It sounds kind of plushy and the intended tang isn't there.

Even though his face is halfway hidden in his own collar, she can see a glint of rue flashing over his face, and for a split-second, she feels sorry for breaking the magic. Nothing seemed real, and now that she brought actuality back in, she realizes she liked it much better without it.

“I'm completely serious. You can sit on the carrier.”

And it's back.

Careful not to jeopardize _it_ again, Carla climbs on the rear rack carrier and then, when Samuel's settled, hughs him tight. It has more to do with the fact that this feels somehow even scarier than when Christian had once persuaded her to go on his motorbike – _don't_ – even though it's rationally _less_ dangerous. The bike is slower, no?

“Are you okay?” He's so quiet and the wind is blowing against them so loudly that Carla probably wouldn't have caught it if she hadn't felt the vibration.

She nods into his back, sighs out relief. She's okay. Daring to open her eyes – a bad decision once again – the dark and the navy and the flecks of streetlights and it's all moving in a haze-

“I'm good,” she breathes out into the nape of his neck, even though that doesn't even begin to cover it. She's _alive_.

He pedals, Carla's face is buried in his jacket, arms tightly wrapped around his waist. Gradually, the rapid beating of her heart has less to do with the uncomfortable bike ride, and more to do with the fact that she's pressed on Samuel, breathing in his scent, and he's soft and smells like faint traces of washing powder and cheap cologne and the stars.

She closes her eyes, breathes him deep into her nostrils and holds her breath. She doesn't want to open them, because they're welling with tears.

_Fuck, Samuel._

_-_

However many minutes later, after she'd opened her eyes and watched the skylines and houses and trees and streetlamps pass them by, he finally starts to slow down. “Get off,” he warns her, but it doesn't sound imperative, it sounds as gentle as a backwash wave scraping the sand, it feels like honey drizzling on pancakes.

The soles of Carla's shoes barely scrape the asphalt, but when the bike stops completely, Samuel tilts it to the side and she manages to swing her left leg to the right side. It's a tin bit pathetic how half a second of imbalance gives her heart an adrenaline rush.

A lot bigger than when ziplining or jumping off a cliff in Greece or flying in a wind tunnel. With no instructors by her side, however less dangerous this is, it's absolutely real.

“So,” Samuel says, visibly warmed up from the physical strain, “Are you good? Sorry, I didn't know how to get you up here any other way-”

“I'm good,” leaves Carla's mouth before she can stop it, in a voice that sounds so unlike her own that it takes her two seconds to realize it had been her who spoke. It sounded like honey and felt like a gentle wave backwash brushing the sand. “So, where is _here_?” she tries to talk over it desperately, taking three steps away from Samuel and absolutely not showing him her face.

“I just- thought you'd like the lookout,” Samuel's words get closer and more wavery with each syllable. “And there's so much stress - with the exams, I mean- But- this was probably stupid-”

Normally, he wouldn't show her his obvious insecurity, flashes through her mind. Carla knows it's there, of course, it must be after what he'd been like the entire previous year chasing Marina, but with her, he seems to be awfully-

-not _confident_. Actually, not confident at all. What is it, then? Determined, maybe. Desperate to get to his goal, letting his instincts drive him-

Carla breathes out.

There's no lies in the night. Everything is so raw that it can't be real.

She turns around, stares into his eyes, deep and big and searching for reassurrance, and kisses him.

Her conscience doesn't curse at her in her head, even though there would be no more appropriate moment.

When they break the kiss, they're both smiling and Carla doesn't think at all about how this is the beginning of the end. Instead, she has him drape his arm over her shoulder and lets him lead her to the edge of the hill. They stare at the golden corporations' skyscrapers in silence. Her father surely had a say in some of them. A say, or a signature, or a load of money to be made into a bigger load.

It's when Samuel says something about _light pollution_ that she has to bite her lip, giggle and look up at him, teeth pulling on her lip, eyes with a glint of something she can't stop.

He kisses her and she doesn't want to.

“Let's go to your place,” she whispers. It brushes his skin and his pores take it in instead of tensing up and letting the receptors do their job and send a message through his nerves to reach his brain and do something smart, because this is, without a doubt, an entirely stupid idea.

It's the more stupid when that night, it's not bites and scratches and heat, but gentle brushes of his lips on her skin. And then it's _her_ lips on _his_ skin. Carla's too far gone to stop _any_ of it.

-

When she sneaks back into the house, it's just shortly after five. She knows the staff comes in at five-thirty, so she does have some reserve.

The way she stands still in the middle of the entrance hall isn't particularly smart in either case, though.

Carla doesn't even know – no, she _does_ , somehow, but so distantly it doesn't even matter – that someone _could_ technically wake up, and she should, as quickly as possible, get out of her shoes and jacket and quietly retreat into her room. Her brain is incapable of sending these signals to her muscles.

Just like she couldn't move for two minutes, suddenly, a jolt of energy racks through her and she can't stand in place. She paces around the hall, shaky, restless, nervous, out of her body. She takes her phone out of her pocket without feeling it.

She does blink and the words she'd dissociatedly typed into her note app do reach her eyes eventually. Finally, the lens has focused enough.

_I think I'm falling in love with him. I think I already have._

She couldn't say it, so she wrote it in hopes that it would feel less real. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

Carla gulps over a huge lump in her throat and succesfully fights the urge to burst into tears.

She drapes her jacket on the hanger quickly, gets rid of her shoes and a few seconds later, closes the door of her room behind herself with a barely audible click.


	3. the game of ice and fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hii! i'm here so early lmao who would've thought. i just wanted to post something for you since i wrote this and my update speed has been less than stellar so i guess i'm trying to make up for it. (also, all of these missing scenes/introspections are very short so it's not that hard to get it done quickly when i have an idea.)  
> this is an insight into carla's feelings, post-red party, set at the beginning of 2.04 - specifically it starts in that first scene where samuel and carla lock eyes in the hallway and rebeka says that he needs a mop lmao. (later that day, polo tells her he told ander.) i know we all love to write the humanized version of carla but i kinda wanted to explore her psycho side a little, or more specifically when she's kind of on the brink of her "transformation" as we saw in s2.
> 
> additional tags: character study

Carla shoots Samuel a smirk when she catches him on the other side of the hallway. Class is about to start, and he's progressing towards the classroom with Rebeka by his side.

_Ew._

Carla usually makes it a point to remain unbothered by annoying or improper people – or just _people_ in general, actually – which is why the unbidden thought catches her by surprise. She's sure it didn't show on her face, but that doesn't make its sudden appearance any less alarming.

The way Samuel can't stop staring at her is definitely helping make her feel – _better?_ Let's go with better. Lately, normal words don't bear accurate enough meaning to describe the state of Carla's life.

The smirk stays on her face the entire time. Rebeka, displeased with something, goes in the door before him, and all that's left to do for Carla to curl her lip the tiniest bit up. She doesn't even remember initiating it.

Samuel, despite the way his obvious unsurety is written in his face, holds the gaze.

She tilts her head while taking the corner. Teasing, daring, testing.

_Do you dare?_

Or maybe: _Catch me if you can._

She's insane, probably. Jaded, definitely; at least that's what she thinks about while getting her pencil case from her purse and obsessively lining it at a perfect parallel with the edge of her desk. It's just that-

It's just that even though this is fucked up, he gives her an adrenaline spike.

Carla's good at flirting. Naturally, she didn't get much chance to test it before Christian, simply because Polo's nervous meltdowns were better to be kept to a minimum. But now that Polo's not her problem anymore-

She shudders, hopes nobody saw it. She doesn't inconspicuously scan the classroom and check – she's not making (another) rookie mistake.

Okay, Polo is just her problem in a thousand different ways now. The occassional anxiety attacks that came from internalized, festering jealousy and insecurity were certainly preferable on a rational level to making sure that he doesn't blow her murder cover-up curated by shock, yet Carla can't help but feel weird spikes of gratitude for her liberation from time to time.

Sure, she loved Polo. She _loves_ Polo in a way you love something precious and fragile and frail: a glass figure, a delicate dried flower, a _child_. She'd do anything to protect him, clearly – she'll do anything to protect _herself_ , more importantly.

The ways of protecting herself come with a bonus that has to do with her newfound liberty and need of a distracting, overwhelming stimulation.

She makes sure not to even flinch in Samuel's direction, instead going through her set of pastel highlighters and ordering them on the desk in a perfect column. No, Samuel is – Samuel intrigues her, it's as simple as that. There's not many things or people that have achieved such a quest, but for Carla, Samuel is somehow the most crystal-clear enigma she's had the chance to deal with. It's obvious what he's doing; what she doesn't understand is _how_ he's doing it, considering his frankly, rather pathetic hunt for Marina the previous school year.

_Maybe despair will cause you to do things you've never thought yourself capable of doing._

Carla grips the yellow highlighter in her fist harshly. Obviously. For a split-second, she closes her eyes, then with forced calm starts to deconstruct her rainbow row and places the stationary pieces one-by-one back into her pencil case. Only with enough grace can she avoid seeming weirdly obsessive or plain _crazy_. Luckily, Carla's nothing if not an expert on grace and, by extension, forcing everyone to simply accept without questioning whatever it is she's doing.

Unfortunately, Carla herself is an exception to the rule.

She's not _jealous,_ seeing Samuel with Rebeka. That is ridiculous. Samuel and Carla are nothing but – nothing but _fucking._ Nothing but players on the opposite sides. She's the queen and he's the pawn, if you wish to use a chess analogy.

He's not going to take her down. Despite the course her thoughts have been taking lately.

She truly never knew he was so interesting. She isn't sure if he, under the beaten-puppy similarities and tragically futile pursuit of a golden youth misfit, has always been this way, or if she brought out the side in him.

Sometimes, she almost feels guilty for it.

Sometimes she's glad.

He's _good_. Certainly better than she'd thought he would be, someone who _should_ be lacking experience. (She wonders if she'd misjudged that too.) Certainly better than Polo, even though that comes from the fact that if you've been sleeping with someone since the age of fourteen, someone not particularly adventurous, things get old.

(Polo turned out to be adventurous in a very different field. Another reason why Carla, when she's feeling extra jaded, can't help but think about how grateful she is for a credible reason to keep them apart forever.)

Samuel is different. Samuel is a problem, not a, though technically skilled and exciting, short-term solution. Samuel is also not an _enabler_ , someone to mend himself around her in a desperate quest to fulfill all her wishes while his own ulcer inside until the black rot reaches the surface. Samuel, in fact, goes _against_ her an awful lot.

She finds herself secretly adoring it. It's a game, a dangerous one at that, but her heart beats fast and her toes curl and her mouth goes dry and it's better than torture.

It's the only thing she feels these days except for mind-numbing guilt: an overwhelming, burning desire to _play_.

If only the game is capable of making her _feel_ , how potent is the danger of some of the elements transferring to reality? More importantly: who'd be the one to break the rules first?

 _Hypothetically_ , of course.

It's just that when she kissed him yesterday, she felt _something_. Something she can ignore, but also something that makes this gambling practice twenty times harder to resist.

Not on their own accord, her eyes flick to Samuel. Her heartbeat spikes up instantly when the brown of his eyes, not heated up with desire this time, but _cold_ , is staring back.

Carla looks down at her hands on the table before she can stop it. She has to take a microscopic extra breath.

See? Intriguing. Challenging. Exciting.

_Terrifying._

That makes her want just as much as it scares her.

Then someone enters the classroom two minutes after the bell with a quietly murmured apology and she's brought back to the ground.

There's nothing exciting or breath-stopping or heated or stimulative about this kind of terror. This one is pure, cutting and icy and paralyzing and _deadly_.

Carla can recite the physical symptoms Polo gets when close to a breakdown. Right now, she could walk over and describe them with a pointer, providing a live demostration. She could, if she wasn't frozen in place.

Polo sinks into his chair and Carla sits, quiet, numb, lifeless in _hers_ like a perfect marble or ice statue, but noone notices, because Carla looks like that all the time, even when there's fire licking at her from the inside. (Now there's no fire though; now there really is _nothing_. Nothing but dread.)

Turning her head to Samuel, almost imperceptibly, switches the power on. The connections start to buzz rapidly.

Carla has all the possibilities and half a plan in one and a half minutes.

It used to be Polo who was her personal catalyst: any sign of possible danger and the gears in her brain started to whirr at triple the speed, all while maintaining calm speech and control. Now, a threat to Polo just makes her still completely; a cruel reminder of what a threat to Polo is to _her_. At this point, she can only sit, immobile, praying that the storm will pass and somehow not take her with it. Polo's troubles trap her in a block of ice. She can't even scream. She can only watch the catastrophe unfold in front of her eyes while steadily drifting off to cold-induced sleep, every organ in her body shutting down.

Samuel's fire saves it; Samuel makes her self-preservation instincts kick in, Samuel's opposition motivates her to keep going, to keep _fighting_. Samuel is the opponent she needs in this game, ruthless and desperate, but she's more of both, she's got much more to lose.

She's reminded he can be nothing but that. Even though it sets her aflame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be quite honest, i really don't know how i feel about this or if it's accurate or ooc... but i guess this was my attempt and take it or leave it lmao. idk i hope you liked it and if you didn't, that makes the two of us lmao.   
> (if you want anything written, a missing moment from the show or anything else, don't hesitate to hmu on tumblr, even though i'm not promising anything in terms of speed - or quality lmao.)  
> nevertheless, tank you for reading, and even more importantly, thank you for your kudos and comments, they're the best motivation to keep me writing <3


	4. is your bedroom ceiling bored?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiii i'm SO sorry for not posting for ages (but it is what it is), i finished this old draft just to write something and i'm posting it because, well, because it's not gonna get any better.  
> yes, it's another post s3 fic with a reunion vibe (don't talk to me) except the reunion is actually only a very minor part in this. this stemmed from me having like a week-long obsession with the song _is your bedroom ceiling bored?_ back when i started writing this in january or something. also i do realize this was supposed to be missing moments from the 2 seasons (or well i said so at least) but i don't like this enough to make it its own fic and it's too short and it does start at the end of s3. so. yeah.  
> and yes, it's only me who'd write something VERY boring with an overarching theme about people staring at their ceilings. i lowkey hate this but it's fine, i hate everything i write lately hence it doesn't make sense to hold it off and you know, you only improve if you keep writing.  
> k bye i'm sorry for not posting for 20 million years and enjoy <3

The day before Carla leaves for university and leaves all the hurt behind, she stares at her ceiling and feels tears in her ears. Cream-colored stucco, floral wallpaper and her glass chandelier suddenly seem like an integral part of her nights. She doesn't know what she'll do once she's away from everything and everyone she's ever known.

 _That's the point_ , she reminds herself strictly, but it doesn't stop her crying. Leaving everything behind is as hard as she'd thought.

Leaving every _one_ behind is much harder.

She clutches on her satin sheets like on a lifeline, sobbing quietly as ahe remembers the club of a few days ago; then the last encounter that followed.

 _Nothing_ can stop her crying now.

-

Samuel gives up on trying to sleep at three twenty-seven, as the display of his phone informs him. He's rolled over and reached to his nightstand twenty seconds ago. Now he's narrowing his eyes at the bluelight source above his head, his thumb traveling to the instagram icon subconsciously.

He switches to his extra account almost instinctively, types the username in the search bar without meaning to and sighs.

No stories. No posts. Last online four hours ago. He didn't even have to bother exerting this extra stalker effort.

He throws his phone away – it bounces, but doesn't fall off the bed. Samuel exhales miserably, focusing his eyes on the stain in the corner.

Another sleepless night it is.

She needs to take mercy on him and let him know that she's okay. _He needs her to_ , soon, or he'll pass out at work one day from the longstanding sleep deficit.

-

The guy is sleeping on his side, facing her. His chest is heaving contently.

Carla allows a microscopic sigh as she, eyes wide open, studies the clear-white ceiling which torturously provides zero distraction from her thoughts.

He's attractive. It wasn't _bad_ by any means.

She turns her head around, watches his parted lips huff air. Carla, not in compliance with the urgency of her decision, rolls away from the bed without making a squeak and looks for her clothes on the floor.

It was probably not the best idea to pick the guy from her seminar for a one-night-stand-then-dump event, especially not two weeks into the semester. It is admittedly an even more stupid decision that she wants to travel alone at three at night in London.

Carla's been making small, stupid decisions to make herself feel better. Unfortunately, so far they hurt no less than the big and smart ones.

-

Samuel lands on Guzmán's bed, much more comfortable than his own. Guzmán's still posing with his Chemistry notebook, but realistically, they've both given up.

“Earth to Samu?”  
He forces himself to snap out of his daze. Only echoes of Guzmán's words reach his brain. “Sorry, I- spaced out.”

“Samu, if we fail, it's gonna be simply embarrassing.”

 _I don't care,_ he thinks. “We won't,” he says, confidence uncharacteristic. But it's the only way to shake Guzmán off.

“You need to get laid.”

He almost chokes on his own spit, his horizontal position heightening the probability. Guzmán's hovering over him. “What?”

“You need to get laid,” Guzmán repeats with a shit-eating grin. “You need to get out and somehow get a chick to fuck you for a distraction.”

“Shut up,” Samuel says, not even trying to sound offended. His words lack any colour.

“Jesus Christ, Samu, are you gonna be depressed for the rest of your life?”

“I'm not depressed,” Samuel grunts, sitting up. He knows Guzmán won't drop it. “You're right, we can't fail Chem.”

Guzmán raises his eyebrow, but throws the notes in Samuel's direction.

-

It's two seventeen at night and the dorm room Carla's crashed at smells like sweat and beer. Her absolutely hammered friend (or something like that) is snoring.

Carla, lying on top of a stranger's bed, is glad that Anna's alcohol tolerance is pathetic and she had an excuse to escape the party. Not that it's a jackpot to be sharing sheets with a girl she'd seen four times in her life, but she's also aware that her exaggerated hygienic concern is just a way to distract herself from the real issue.

She's not supposed to feel this way, not when a full year has passed since what wasn't even a break-up. She wonders if he remembers the date as well as she does – the day her life shattered, along with her _heart_.

“I miss you,” Carla whispers brokenly, stupidly into the ceiling. It's not like anyone could hear her – it's not like she _wishes_ for anyone to hear her. She's been letting the feelings fester inside for a good reason.

But tonight especially, they want out. Carla doesn't know which one of the answers scares her more, but with the burning desire of a pain-junkie, she lets the possible scenarios flash through her head.

A single silent tear streams down her cheek.

-

He feels as if he couldn't have picked a worse start for the new year. The uncensored thought immediately makes him feel bad for the girl whose black locks are thrown across the white pillow.

At least he can throw in Guzmán's face that it absolutely _didn't_ help.

The girl shuffles and brushes her calf against his. Samuel jerks away urgently, alarmed at the prospect of waking her up, but also overtaken by instinct.

 _Happy fucking new year to me_ , he thinks bitterly.

Victoria – was her name Victoria? - hums and scoots herself closer to his side of the bed. Samuel moves to the complete edge in a panicky game of cat and mouse.

 _Fucking shit_. Guzmán was right: he really is absolutely hopeless.

He reaches for his phone on the nighstand blindly and hopes that Victoria isn't a light sleeper. The light blares across the room.

Samuel's eyes are burnt out with the sight of Carla's profile picture. He chews on his lip and types: _Happy New Year._

He stares at it for ten seconds, thumb lingering above the little arrow. Just as his pad is about to hit the screen, Victoria muffles a sound in the pillow.

_Get your shit together._

He deletes the message, puts away his phone and returns to the girl's side.

-

Carla's almost a hundred-percent sure that she failed the exam. It's the last straw, the one needed for the downward spiral.

She's already dressed in the shortest sparkly dress she has, black heels and with make-up so exaggerated she could be in a theatre production. She's reaching for the door handle when she realizes what she's about to do and falls down to the ground without any prior warning.

Her cheeks are damp in a matter of a second, but the reverse process seems miles away even after twenty minutes. Every time she thinks she's about to stop crying, another violent outburst shivers through her whole body.

It hurts so much that she, over the wall of tears, blindly unlocks her phone and stains the whatsapp contact list with tears as she realizes that she can't call any of these people.

She's down a good forty contacts, her grip shaky with tears, when she sees the three jumping dots.

She stops crying instantly, only one last gasp and sniffle leaving her throat. Now that she's actually come to her senses, she can say without a doubt that it's true. Her desperate mind didn't make it up.

Carla stares at the chat for three minutes, the typing dots still playing on loop accompanied by the little popping sound.

Then it goes silent.

After five further minutes, she starts to think that she _is_ delusional after all. She tips her head back against the wall, eyes wide open. Wet, but differently this time.

It's not hysteria. It's pure despair.

-

On Febraury the first, Samuel's apartment floods. The plumber costs him half his food budget and another shift as he has to let him in. He's not the most luxury plumber, that's clear. Samuel decides that it's better to anger his boss and risk a pay cut than a full on robbery. He calls his co-worker and he covers for him without a problem.

Still, when he falls down on his bed, not even ten minutes left until February the second, he wants to scream. Everything is pure _shit_ and it won't get better. It feels as if it will never get better. He'll always be stuck _here_.

He doesn't know what takes over him. Probably a surge of despair, forcing him to do something about his hopeless situation. Despite everything, Samuel doesn't give up. Maybe because he could never afford to.

But _this_ was a sensible thing to give up on. Samuel stares at the hopelessly delievered message and feels acids rise up his throat.

 _How is she?_ Probably great. Definitely great, studying and touring bars and hooking up with guys and never once sparing him a thought-

He blinks, once, twice.

_I'm fine, just tired. How are you?_

He can't force his fingers to cooperate.

_I'm really happy to hear from you._

Well, shit. He _should_ reply now.

He should also force the hope to stop filling in the pit in his stomach, because it will hurt twice as much the second time. But he can't bring himself to.

-

The texts are – dry. Carla's tiptoeing desperately around every important question, yet still springs up every time her phone buzzes with a hopeful smile.

Then it's Friday, she's a little tipsy yet home at ten, laying on top of her made bed, twitchy and restless. Her phone feels _magnetic_.

Liquid courage does its magic.

It evaporates at an exponential rate with every beep. She's about to hang up, relief and regret swirling around each other with the wine she'd drunk.

“Carla?”

 _Oh god_ , she thinks. Her mouth refuses to enounce sounds.

“Uh. Carla. H- Hi.”

“Hi,” Carla responds, insecure but at least _better_ in comparison. Her unsurety projects itself in silence and panicky, raging thoughts, while Samuel wastes no time transferring them into speech.

“Wow. H- How are you? I mean- you're in London, right? Does it rain a lot?”

She almost _chuckles_.

“I mean, Guzmán told me,” Samuel goes on with his blabber. “Because Ander knows from Omar and Nadia told him that Lu told her that you decided to go to the UK – so, that's how I know. Not because I'm stalking you. I mean – yeah. Uh.”

“Yeah,” Carla nods for herself. It sounds soft and composed, but once Samuel shuts up and it's her turn to speak, she finds her mind blank again. “Um.” _Fuck._

“You won't believe me, but I was just about to call you,” Samuel saves her. It's also the most coherent sentence he's said since the start of the phone call, which is ironic. Carla doesn't say that if that's true, it took him an awfully long time to pick up. “I mean, I don't know if it would've happened-”

“Samuel,” Carla starts stupidly. She hasn't gotten a clearer idea of what to say since her last replica in this poorly written dialogue, but she felt the need to say his name. The syllables taste like comfort on her tongue after so long.

“I miss you,” he blurts out. “I just – didn't know if you felt the same. Which is why I didn't call-”

“I know,” Carla answers softly, without prior thinking. “I felt the same.”

The phone is silent for a moment. She hears his breaths.

“Car-”

“I shouldn't have left like that,” bursts out of her before she can stop it. “I never told you how I felt.”

She feels her heart skip a beat. By some strange virtue of higher powers, she swears she can feel how his skipped a beat, too.

“Um.” She licks her lip – she'll go through with this, but fuck, it's hard. All her _furniture_ is judging her. “So-”

“Let's not do this over the phone,” Samuel interrupts her, voice softer, somehow controlled. “I mean- Let's just not do that right now.”

Carla sucks her breath between her teeth. “Okay,” she says, even though this is out of their depths. She has no idea what to do.

“We'll deal with that w- _if_ we see each other,” Samuel says, voice waivering again, ending with a contained sigh. “I don't think this would help anything.” Carla's heart is jumping in her ribcage. “For now, can you just – tell me something stupid?”

It draws a laugh out of her, tiny and unsure but the realer at that. “What?”

“I don't know. Anything,” Samuel mumbles. “Like, my toilet broke so I have to drink at specific times because I can't exactly go to my neighbour's bathroom thirty times a day. Something like that.”

Carla giggles. “That's disgusting. What about the plumber?”

Samuel breathes out lowly and it takes Carla embarrassingly long to catch up. His voice is mellow when he speaks, though. “Now you.”

“I don't know. Yesterday, I went to the library and dropped this huge stack of books with my laptop on top. It was grave-quiet. Everyone stared at me.”

“Did the laptop break?”

“No,” Carla shakes her head for herself.

“What, then?”

“Nothing. It was just embarrassing,”

It's the most pathetic story ever, but Samuel's laugh clinks over the phone.

“You suck at this, you know?” He starts hesitantly, but every new syllable gains a mischevious edge. “Maybe even more than me.”

Carla bites down a dimpled smile. “Don't flatter yourself.”

-

After coming home from school or work or wherever he was, he always plops down on his bed and opens his phone with a stupid hopeful unrest in his stomach. When he sees a text from Carla, the flutter turns into a full on storm tearing his insides. It's a storm he's been trying to calm ever since it started, but as it turns out, it's one of those hurricanes that destroys everything in its path until it gets what it wants.

It's a lot worse with hope. Knowing that she might want the same, but there's a sea and schools and a million unspoken questions between them.

The one that bothers him the most, as of currently, is: _why did you leave?_

(Why did you leave _me?_ )

Now that he knows that none of the logical answers apply, the ones he's been feeding himself with along with pejoratives and attempts at wiping out his memories or an occassional alcohol binge, the question is the more insistent, yet also the harder to get out of his mouth.

-

They see each other because her father dies.

It's morbid or ironic, or maybe just the closing of a circle. Carla doesn't even think about where she's going straight from the funeral. She stands in front of his apartment after two and a half months of sporadic texts that either of them refused to let die turned to awkward phone calls turned to talking all night in muffled voices while staring at her stupid London apartment ceiling and wishing that she could be staring at _him_.

She rings his doorbell and cries, for the right reasons and the wrong ones, reasons that contradict and directly cause and intertwine with each other.

At three in the morning, he drives them out to the outskirts of the city (he's upgraded his bike to a moped), spreads out a greyed bedsheet and cradles her in his arms under the stars.

She'll never admit how much she loves the fact that all his _moves_ are clearly stolen from rom-coms.

“You'll be okay, everything will be,” he hushes, lip brushing her ear in a honest accident. “I'm sorry.”

She's not sorry, for a multitude of reasons, even though she _is_ sad. She doesn't tell him that, though; he doesn't need to think that she's even more heartless than he already must. (Or, _emotionally stunted_. From all the _trauma._ )

“Thank you,” she says instead, sniffles. “For still caring about me. _Always_ caring about me, even if-”

His scoff is almost a snort, disbelieving. “I couldn't stop caring about you if I tried.”

 _When_ he tried, they both think. It hangs above them heavily, not a lingering, but a doubtless presence.

“Me neither,” Carla finally breaks it with a long exhale. “You know why I left now. It was never because I didn't-”

“Yeah. I know.” He sounds less serious now – there's a lighthearted contentness under his words. “Lucky me.”

She'd huff out something half-annoyed and half-amused and maybe just a bit to reassure herself, but then Samuel's lips are on hers (for the first time in a million years) and his hands are bracing himself over her and then traveling all over her body and then they're completely innecessantly (steam)rolling over and she'd laugh at how ridiculous they must look if she wasn't so busy trying to commit every nuance of emotion his kiss can awaken in her to memory.

She's never felt quite the same before him or since him. He stops kissing her (lips bruised and face _smug_ ), and she stares at him, startled and breathless, and she can't exactly recollect the feeling even though it's only been a few seconds. Carla just knows that she really, really needs to feel it again.

“Lucky you,” she snickers when she can, pushing herself up on her elbow, smoothing out her hair. Her effort is laughably futile, that is clear even to herself. She falls down half onto the sheet and half on him, giggling into his shoulder. “You're just so-”

And she can't find a word to describe it. Samuel hums easily and pulls her impossibly closer. “Look at the stars.”

Now, she could find a word – dork. Or cheesy. (Or a ripoff of every rom-com good-guy love interest.)

She doesn't; she just listens to him.

There's no ceiling above her to paint wistful pictures of him on. There's no emptiness, but there's no prison in her misery either.

 _He_ is next to her, and above her are the stars and every possibility she can think of.

For the first time in years, Carla feels like what _she_ wants is in her reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading and your kudos and comments <3

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading, i really hope you enjoyed this and thanks for your kudos and comments <3  
> catch up with me on tumblr: [loquenomedices](https://loquenomedices.tumblr.com/)


End file.
